10 Predictions for the Future of the Finance Tech Stack
Based on +1,000 responses to our 2025 tech stack survey
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The 2025 Tech Stack Report revealed some stark realities about finance teams today. While innovation is happening, the tech stack remains highly fragmented, and some areas are still running on spreadsheets (yes, even at $500M+ revenue companies).
But the cracks are showing, and change is coming fast. Here’s what’s next:
1. FP&A and BI are Merging—Because CFOs Own the Data Now
Finance teams used to just report the financials. Now they’re expected to explain what’s happening, and why, using finance, sales, and product data.
With data ownership shifting to CFOs, it makes sense that FP&A and BI tools are converging.
Companies like Runway and Equals are blurring the lines, embedding analytics inside financial planning workflows.
And finance teams don’t just need historical reporting—they want predictive insights. That’s why FP&A tools like Planful, Pigment, and Aleph are pulling in product usage, sales data, and hiring plans to create rolling forecasts.
Bottom line: The days of exporting BI data into a model are numbered—the future is all-in-one business (not just financial) intelligence.
2. Invoicing and Billing is Becoming a Product Decision, Not Just a Finance One
Usage-based pricing was step one. AI-powered outcome-based pricing is next.
Billing is no longer just counting revenue—it’s how customers experience your product.
Companies that get billing right (see: Stripe, Bill, Maxio, Subscript) will win on customer experience.
The best billing systems will feel invisible to customers—but deeply connected to finance, product, and GTM teams.
This shift sets up the next challenge: handling Accounts Receivable at scale…
3. Accounts Receivable is a Mess—Which Means M&A is Coming
Our report barely mentions AR automation, calling it “Invoicing & Billing.” Why? Because AR is still wildly fragmented.
Homegrown tools and "Other" still make up HALF of this market at every revenue level.
40+ different vendors were named in our survey for Accounts Payable, signaling a similar underpenetration in AR.
Expect consolidation as bigger players roll up niche AR automation tools and AI-powered collections become mainstream (once we can fully trust the AI outputs… ya don’t wanna get AR wrong)
4. The Holy Grail: Cards, Expense Management & Travel in One
Finance teams are tired of managing three separate tools for corporate cards, expense reporting, and travel bookings.
The next evolution? A single, seamless platform.
Ramp, Brex, and Navan are pushing hard to get there.
SAP Concur, watch your back—the wolves are at the door.
5. Procurement is Being Democratized at the SMB Level
Procurement used to be an enterprise-only function, but that’s changing fast.
SMBs are adopting lighter-weight procurement tools (Tropic, Zip) earlier in their lifecycle.
Finance teams are taking more control over spend approval workflows instead of leaving it to department heads.
The trade-off? More oversight, but less red tape.
And this shift left parallels what we’re seeing in how companies compensate their sales teams…
6. It’s Extremely Early for Sales Compensation Software
Most sales comp plans still live in spreadsheets, even as companies scale past $100M ARR.
Vendors like CaptivateIQ, QuotaPath, and ZenCentiv are gaining traction, but we haven’t seen the "Salesforce of sales comp" yet.
Oh wait—Salesforce acquired Spiff in 2024…
Which brings us back to FP&A—because sales comp must flow directly into forecasting.
7. The Real FP&A Winner Will Make Rolling Forecasts a Reality
The FP&A tool that wins won’t be the most powerful—it will be the most seamless.
Imagine:
You delay a hire in your recruiting system → The forecast auto-adjusts in real time.
A large enterprise contract renews early → Revenue projections shift instantly.
If a new entrant, like Puzzle or Rillet, or an existing powerhouse, like NetSuite or Sage, can make a continuous close with real-time GL’s a reality, it will be a 10x unlock for FP&A.
Which reminds us of a major power shift in the finance tech stack…
8. HRIS Will Consume More FP&A Players—Because 70% of Costs Walk on Two Feet
At tech companies, the majority of expenses are people.
So why are we still using separate tools for workforce planning and financial forecasting?
Workday led the way, rolling HRIS + ERP + FP&A into one.
HiBob’s acquisition of Mosaic signals that the mid-market is moving this way, too.
The big question: How many standalone FP&A tools will actually survive?
Speaking of… vendors are choosing to either go vertical or horizontal…
9. The Vertical War for the Source of Truth
ERP, FP&A, and HRIS vendors are fighting to own entire verticals by absorbing adjacent workflows.
Workday (HR + ERP + FP&A) and NetSuite (ERP + payments + billing) are pushing to be the single source of truth.
As a vendor, you want to own the “control point”.
Which is ok by us, since CFOs want fewer logins and fewer integration headaches.
But ERP isn’t the only battleground—there’s an even bigger land grab happening in spend management…
10. The Horizontal War for Payments, Spend, and Cash Flow
While ERP vendors fight vertically, fintechs are racing to be the finance layer across the org.
Brex, Ramp, and Navan are morphing into spend-management super apps—absorbing AP, cards, procurement, travel, and maybe even banking (Mercury?).
Their strategy? Be the layer finance teams don’t even think about.
As AI drives more automation, fewer manual approvals, and savings insights, horizontal platforms could make CFOs question: how often do we log into the ERP?
The finance team of the future won’t just run the numbers (great pod, btw)—it will run the workflows, too.
Final Thought:
CFOs are no longer just closing the books—they’re architecting the future of financial operations. I spoke with Jim Cook of Netflix / Intuit / Mozilla on the pod (Apple | Spotify | YouTube), and we discussed how CFOs are becoming architects of the business—after all, the term “operating plan” implies that we are shaping the look, feel, and output from the org.
And the vendors that win will be the ones that make that job easier, not harder.
Thank You to Our Sponsors
ERP: Oracle Netsuite
FP&A: Planful
Invoicing & Billing: Subscript
Procurement: Tropic
Sales Compensation: Zencentiv
Revenue Recognition and Close Management: Sage Intacct
BI & Analytics: Runway